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In 1772-73 missionary David Jones visited Blue Jacket’s Town, a settlement of 12 cabins downstream on the east bank and Pickaweekee, a Shawnee town, on the west bank. Deercreek Methodist Circuit Deacon, Dr. Edward Tiffin, met settlers after 1798. Dr. Tiffin was later elected first governor of Ohio. A station of Virginia bounty-land settlers, “Williams Town,” assembled here around 1797. Mill sites, established before Pickaway County, flourished in the dense oak forest of Deercreek Township. Frontier hotels in Williamsport prospered due to the “healthful” sulphur springs.
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The 103rd O.V.I. was recruited for Civil War service from Cuyahoga, Lorain, and Medina counties. The Regiment was organized at Cleveland in August, 1862, and served until 1865 in campaigns at Cincinnati, Knoxville, Atlanta, Franklin, Nashville, and the Carolinas.103rd O.V.I. veterans and their descendants have held continuous, annual reunions since 1867. The organization is believed to be unique in the nation. Descendants live on these grounds today.
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Named for the Native Americans who first dwelled here along both sides of the Kokosing River, the Little Indian Fields is adjacent to the site of the first white settlement of Knox County. Early white inhabitants of this land were Andrew and Catherine Craig and Benjamin and John Butler. John “Appleseed” Chapman planted an apple orchard near here at the confluence of the Kokosing River and Centre Run and in 1809 bought two lots in Mount Vernon. In 1808 the Ohio Legislature created Knox County and later designated Mount Vernon as the county seat.
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On this site in 1809, pious Christians from Virginia and North Carolina erected a Methodist Church, the first in Greene County. The church was officially organized on May 23, 1807 as the Bonner Society. Frederick Bonner, Sr. and the illustrious Rev. John Sale were the principal organizers. This Methodist Church, one of the oldest in Ohio, has been serving the area known as the Union Neighborhood uninterrupted from this site since 1809. Rev. Bennett Maxey was the first pastor. (Continued on other side)
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One of America’s best-known sport shooters and entertainers of the late 1800s, Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Mosey (or Mozee) north of Versailles in Darke County in 1860. She achieved local fame for her shooting ability as a hunter while still in her teens. By 1885 Oakley was a star performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. With husband and manager Frank Butler, she refined a shooting act and image that appealed to late 19th century notions of a romanticized but vanishing West. Throughout her 30-year performing career, Oakley provided honest entertainment in a deception-prone industry while demonstrating widening opportunities for women. She retained her Ohio ties throughout her life and is interred at Brock Cemetery, eleven miles north of Greenville.
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Replacing an earlier bridge that was carried away in a spring flood, the Harpersfield Covered Bridge was built in 1868 and spans the Grand River, a state-designated wild, and scenic river. This bridge, which currently carries County Road #154 (Harpersfield Road), is a two-span wooden Howe truss bridge, with center pier. The great flood of 1913 washed away the northern approach and it was at this time that the additional 140 foot steel truss was added. Extensive rehabilitation in 1992 included strengthening the lower chords, lowering and replacing the floor, and adding a cantilevered walkway. The 228-foot-long Harpersfield Bridge is the longest covered bridge in Ohio and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
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The Windsor Township Baptist Association was organized January 11, 1818 by Elder William Davis with 35 members who met in homes, barns and schoolhouses. At the death of the six-year-old granddaughter of Samuel and Tabitha Davis Henery, this plot by the river was laid out of a church yard and deeded by John Henery in 1837. In 1838 a brick church was built at the cost of $1,000. It served this community until the road and church were destroyed by the flood of 1913. More than 50 men from this area served in the Civil War. Twenty-six War of 1812 veterans are buried here as well as William Davis, veteran of the American Revolution; Obadiah Brokaw, founder of Big Bottom State Memorial; and Captain Isaac Newton Hook, river pilot at the age of ten and U.S. master of inland navigation, 1860-1873, who ran supplies on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers for the Union Army. At Captain Hook’s death in 1906, the steamers Valley Gem, Zanesville, and Sonoma from Marietta in his honor landed passengers at the church here for his funeral, “largest ever held in the Muskingum Valley.” “The Lord and the River giveth and then taketh away.”
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This area, known as Calmoutier, was an early French Catholic farming community founded in 1832 by Claude Druhot, who came from Calmoutier, Hte-Saône, France. Its first native, the four-month-old Claude Joseph Druhot, was baptized on 9 June 1833 by Fr. John Henni, who resided at St. John’s in Canton (and in 1854 became Milwaukee’s first bishop). In 1836 Fr. John Alleman, O.P., established St. Genevieve’s Mission (when it began to keep its own records) on land donated by the Pierson and Roussel families. The log chapel that was built (the first of four churches here) predated any Catholic church building in Cleveland, Akron, and Toledo.
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